Dell Alienware AW3225QF Monitor Review

The Dell AW3225QF has a slightly curved screen with a gamer-oriented design that takes elements from other Alienware monitors. The stand and the back housing feature white plastic, while the plastic that covers the panel is black.

The build quality is excellent. The plastic materials are solid and don't flex easily. The stand is sturdy as it doesn't wobble, and the cable management is easy to use. Overall, it feels great, and there isn't any audible noise coming from a fan. One downside is that the joystick control is loose and creates an audible noise when you use it.

Another downside is that the packaging it comes in causes some scratches and bubble marks on the screen, which is an issue that others have reported. You can see an example of this in the top right corner of this picture. This isn't so much an issue with how the monitor is made but rather how it's packaged.

The Dell AW3225QF has decent ergonomics. You can adjust it in a few different ways, which is helpful if you like constantly adjusting your screen or if you need to share it with someone next to you. You can also route your cables through the stand for cable management to keep them tidy, and there's a cover that goes over the inputs.

The V-shaped stand is solid and holds the screen well. The thickness measurement is from the side of the screen to the back of the stand, and the thickness from the center of the screen to the back of the stand is 8.9" (22.5 cm).

The thickness measurement is from the side of the screen to the back, and the thickness from the center of the screen to the back is 2.7" (6.9 cm).

There's a single joystick to control the on-screen display, although it's loose. There's also a power button on the right side.

• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• USB-B to USB-A cable
• Power cable
• Cleaning cloth
• User guides
• Alienware sticker

The Dell AW3225QF has a near-infinite contrast ratio, as its QD-OLED panel can turn individual pixels on and off. This means it displays deep blacks next to bright highlights in dark rooms. That said, like previous QD-OLED displays, ambient light causes blacks to look purple, so it doesn't display the same deep blacks in bright rooms.

The Dell AW3225QF doesn't have a backlight, so it doesn't require a local dimming feature. However, with a near-infinite contrast ratio, there isn't any blooming around bright objects, and it's the equivalent of a perfect local dimming feature. We still film these videos on the monitor so you can see how the screen performs and compare it with a monitor that has local dimming.

The SDR brightness is okay. It maintains its brightness very consistently across different content, even better than some other OLEDs. While it doesn't get bright enough to fight intense glare, it's still fine if you have a few lights around. These results are in the 'Custom Color' Preset Mode after calibration with the Brightness at its max.

The Dell AW3225QF has decent HDR peak brightness. It gets brightest with small highlights, meaning they really pop against the rest of the image for a vivid HDR experience. However, highlights quickly get dimmer the larger they are. The EOTF follows the target well for most dark and mid-tone scenes until there's a slow roll-off at the peak brightness, meaning it doesn't let highlights get the brightest they can.

These results are in the 'HDR Peak 1000' Smart HDR mode with the Brightness locked to 75 and Console Mode off. Enabling Console Mode causes the EOTF to have a sharper roll-off, as you can see here.

The 'HDR Peak 1000' mode is brighter than 'Custom Color HDR,' which has a Real Scene brightness of 356 cd/m², and highlights don't get brighter than 450 cd/m². However, the EOTF has a sharper roll-off later in 'Custom Color HDR,' meaning it doesn't perform any tone mapping before your source does, as you can see here.

The monitor supports Dolby Vision, and you need to make sure you have the monitor updated to firmware M2B103 or newer for the best performance. As of this firmware update, which was released in Feb. 2024, you can turn Dolby Vision on or off as needed. Before the update, it automatically stayed on, even in Windows HDR, leading to washed-out colors and some issues. Lastly, updating it to this firmware allows Dolby Vision to work with a Blu-ray, as it didn't before.

The horizontal viewing angle is outstanding. Although it technically isn't perfect, you visually won't see any inconsistencies when viewing from the sides or if you sit close to the screen.

Like with the horizontal viewing angle, the vertical angle is outstanding, and you won't notice any inconsistencies when standing up and looking down at the monitor.

The Dell AW3225QF has fantastic gray uniformity. There aren't any areas of clouding or noticeable issues. However, like any OLED, there are thin gray vertical lines in dark scenes, but you won't notice them unless you look for them.

Thanks to its OLED panel, there isn't any blooming around bright objects.

The Dell AW3225QF has remarkable accuracy before calibration. The 'Creator' Preset Mode acts as its sRGB mode and locks colors well to the sRGB color space, so they aren't oversaturated. The white balance and most colors have minimal inaccuracies, and even the color temperature is extremely close to the 6500K target. Although it's slightly overbrightened throughout, gamma follows the target curve well. However, to fix this issue, you need to update the firmware to M2B102, which Dell released on Feb. 6, 2024. Otherwise, gamma is worse on older firmware.

Luckily, the 'Creator' mode only locks the RGB settings, so you can still access other settings. Other modes like 'Custom Color' are less accurate, as you can see here.

The accuracy after a full calibration is incredible. Calibrating it mainly fixes gamma and slightly improves the white balance, color temperature, and color accuracy.

The Dell AW3225QF has an outstanding SDR color gamut. It displays the full range of colors in the common sRGB color space and a wide range of colors in Adobe RGB, though green is the most inaccurate, and red is also off. This is disappointing if you're a professional editor using this color space.

The HDR color gamut is fantastic. It displays a wide range of colors in DCI-P3 and Rec. 2020 with minimal tone mapping issues in either. Unlike with the Dell Alienware AW3423DWF, you don't need to enable Console Mode and Source Tone Mapping for the best results.

The Dell AW3225QF has an excellent HDR color volume. Thanks to its QD-OLED panel, colors are bright relative to pure white, and it doesn't have any issues displaying dark colors either.

The Dell AW3225QF has excellent text clarity. Thanks to its high pixel density, text looks very sharp, and enabling Windows ClearType (top photo) improves the boldness of letters. While it isn't as good as other 4k monitors, like the Dell G3223Q, because programs don't render text well with its triangular subpixel layout, it's still better than other ultrawide QD-OLEDs, like the Dell Alienware AW3423DW. These photos are in Windows 10, and you can also see them in Windows 11 with ClearType on and with ClearType off.

Due to the triangular subpixel layout, there's still some color fringing around letters, and at the edge of windows. It's hard to see unless you look closely at the monitor. Although we didn't experience any eye strain during testing, even with long periods of use, this is something that changes from person to person, and it depends on how sensitive you are to this subpixel layout.

The reflection handling is incredible. The glossy screen coating reduces glare extremely well while maintaining a clear image. That said, strong ambient light causes the black levels to raise, making blacks look purple, which is a known downside of QD-OLEDs.

The Dell AW3225QF has fantastic gradient handling, and you won't see any banding.

While you can reach the max refresh rate with a 4k resolution over DisplayPort and HDMI, your graphics card needs to support Display Stream Compression (DSC) to reach it, which most modern graphics cards support anyway.

The Dell AW3225QF supports all common VRR formats over both DisplayPort and HDMI, including FreeSync, despite not having official certification from AMD. We didn't experience any issues with G-SYNC over HDMI either, as it worked properly.

The Dell AW3225QF has outstanding motion handling across its entire refresh rate range with VRR enabled. CAD remains low throughout and there's minimal blur with fast-moving objects.

The refresh rate compliance is outstanding. As it has a near-instantaneous response time, it can keep up with fast frame rates really well, and it makes full color transitions before drawing the next frame.

The CAD at the maximum refresh rate is outstanding. It displays fast-moving objects as intended and motion is extremely sharp.

The CAD at 120Hz is outstanding. Pixels transition to their target RGB level almost instantly, so there isn't any blur trail or noticeable inverse ghosting.

The CAD at 60Hz is outstanding. Pixels transition colors almost perfectly, and any noticeable blur is persistence.

The Dell AW3225QF doesn't have an optional black frame insertion feature to reduce the persistence blur further.

The Dell Alienware AW3225QF has noticeable VRR flicker with changing frame rates, and it's especially noticeable in dark scenes. This can be distracting while gaming, but it's common with most OLEDs, and isn't a problem if your PC can maintain a consistent frame rate.

The backlight isn't technically flicker-free because it has a slight dip in brightness that corresponds to the 240Hz refresh rate. However, it isn't considered pulse-width modulation like on LED-backlit monitors because it isn't a full-screen on-and-off flicker, and you won't notice it.

The Dell AW3225QF has low input lag for a responsive feel. Although the 240Hz and 60Hz results are with Console Mode off, the 120Hz result is with Console Mode set to 'Legacy Mode' as it's the only way to get 120Hz from a PC over HDMI. That said, the input lag remains the same whether you enable Console Mode or not or even if you use a DisplayPort connection.

The Dell AW3225QF works well with the PS5 and supports 4k up to 120Hz thanks to its HDMI 2.1 bandwidth. While you don't need to enable Console Mode for full compatibility, Dell suggests using it for the best experience with consoles. However, it doesn't support 1440p at all, as you can see here, even with Console Mode enabled.

The monitor works well with the Xbox Series X|S and supports 4k up to 120Hz thanks to its HDMI 2.1 bandwidth. While you don't need to enable Console Mode for the best compatibility, Dell suggests using it for the best experience with consoles. However, there are some downsides, as you need to enable the console's HDMI override setting to get 1440p @ 60Hz, which also disables VRR. Even with a 1440p @ 60Hz signal, you can't switch it to 120Hz, as you can see here. Keep in mind that the Xbox doesn't support HDR with 1080p or 1440p signals, so that isn't an issue with the monitor. Even though the monitor supports Dolby Vision, it doesn't work with the console at all, even when you enable 'Allow HDR' on the Xbox, as you can see here.

Most of the inputs are underneath the back right side of the monitor, and there are two USB ports underneath the front left side. The power port is underneath the back left side.

One of the HDMI ports is meant to serve as the eARC/ARC port so you can connect a soundbar to play sound from your device, and it's advertised to support Dolby Atmos. That said, we couldn't get it to work on our monitor, as our PC didn't detect an audio source with a soundbar connected. Even after changing the settings, nothing worked. There are reported issues of this online, but it doesn't seem to happen to everyone, so your experience may vary. It's disappointing if you can't get it to work because it doesn't have another audio output or speakers, so you would need to connect your audio device directly to your console or PC. That said, we'll retest the monitor if there are any updates.

As the USB-C port doesn't support DisplayPort Alt Mode or Thunderbolt, you can only use it to charge devices or connect peripherals, like a keyboard or mouse, but you can't display an image from your laptop.

The Dell AW3225QF works well with macOS. The max refresh rate with a DisplayPort connection is 120Hz, but you can get the max 240Hz refresh rate with an HDMI 2.1 connection with the macOS firmware updated to Sonoma 14.4.1 or newer. If you use an older Mac limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth, the max refresh rate is 60Hz, and it doesn't support VRR. HDR looks good in games, but SDR looks better on the desktop, so it's better to turn HDR off for general work use. If you're using a MacBook, windows go back to their original position after reopening the lid or waking the laptop up from sleep.

The Dell AW3225QF has a few extra features, including:

• Alienware Command Center: Application to control the RGB backlighting and other basic functions like power consumption and color profiles. This software is only available on Windows, but you can still change the backlighting colors through the OSD if you have a macOS device. Unfortunately, there's a bug with the RGB lighting. If you change inputs or even power the monitor off and on again, the lights turn on, even if you had them set to off in the Alienware Command Center or in the OSD.
• AlienVision: Provides different crosshairs and vision modes. Your game's anti-cheat tool won't detect this, giving you a competitive advantage.
• Dark Stabilizer: Changes gamma in games so that you can see your opponents more easily in darker areas.
• Game Enhance Mode: Provides timer, frame rate counter, and display alignment features.
• PIP/PBP: Allows you to display images from two inputs at once, and you can customize the location and size of the windows.

As expected for an OLED panel, it has a few settings under OLED Panel Maintenance to help reduce the risk of burn-in. Dell also offers a 3-year burn-in warranty.

• Pixel Refresh: The monitor runs a pixel refresh cycle after every 4 hours of usage, and it takes 6-8 minutes to complete.
• Panel Refresh: This is a more complicated process that refreshes the whole panel and takes about an hour to do, but it only runs after 7,000 hours of usage, or you can manually enable it.

There's also a Panel Health indicator that displays a colored dot to show the status for when you need to run a pixel or panel refresh cycle. While there's no setting for pixel shifting, the monitor automatically performs pixel shifting, although it isn't clear how often.